


The Sapphire Mark

by phrenique



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Derogatory Language, Explicit Language, F/M, Implied Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-19 13:11:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13705161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phrenique/pseuds/phrenique
Summary: Jaime was not exactly at the age where one changed habits or careers. Or lives, for that matter.But having nowhere left to run to, and thanks to his rescue of Sansa Stark, he was reluctantly accepted as trainee in the Alliance, an information-retrieval establishment and bitter opponent to his own family’s reign. Now, there’s only one obstacle left in his goal to become an active agent and that is: Dossier code name Sapphire.





	1. In which Arya's gleeful and Jaime starts a fight

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to A for combing it through, as always.
> 
> This was born from my love for La Femme Nikita (the movie and the original TV series), so what better thing, I thought to myself, than have Jaime as a world-weary but still-new-to-this-game Nikita?

“She wants to see you fail, Kingslayer.” 

He knew that voice, and irritating as it could get, it was still miles better than the one belonging to her mentor, the Blackfish. Jaime turned away from the info-screen and acknowledged her, making a show of lowering his head until his gaze finally fell into her own.

“Arya.”

“I see you got the Sapphire for your final assessment. Nobody actually passes the Sapphire you know, it’s the Kobayashi Maru.” Arya’s doe eyes were alight, drenched in more than their usual amount of bloodlust. That did not bode well. Worse, she didn’t make a habit out of lying. Not to him.

“What’s a Kobayashi Maru?”, he asked, shrugging off the icy tremor of dismay running up his spine. He was a little more than twice her age and even taken out of the Lannister sphere of influence and thrust into this nest of vipers she called home, he would not shame himself or squander what little honor he had left.

“Ha ha, you’re a funny man, Lannister, enjoy it while you can. Fail this test, and my mother will find a way to have your head, despite whatever deal you’ve got yourself with Old Olenna.” 

“Nice to see how loyalty is repaid in your family. You save a princess and you get the gallows.” 

Turning away from her, Jaime quickly decided this was a good time to get some real intel on his future mission, before Catelyn Stark decided to feed him some useless crap to get him to fuck it all up. The training facility promised a solid opener, since it was the only place where active operatives and trainees mingled indiscriminately.

Arya, never one to shy away from prolonging her pleasure in other people’s misfortunes, grabbed his arm before he could leave. 

“She won’t ever forget you stood by and let your sister kill my dad. It doesn’t matter you got Sansa out. She wants your blood, and the Alliance will not fight her on this.”

Jaime removed her hand with all the delicacy he could muster, then kept it trapped into his own.

“And why do you care, little gunner? What if your dear mother does hear word that one of her doves has been whispering in the ear of a condemned man?”

Arya smiled. It wanted to be a ferocious expression, but was instead such an endearing sight, that for one moment homesickness bit at Jaime’s heart and infected him with the longing for his own children.

“I don’t. You’re damaged goods, everyone here knows it. You’re a worthless swine with no honor. We’re all waiting for your downfall.” She withdrew her hand and wiped it on the thick cloth of her dark pants. “See you at the Armory then, Kingslayer. I’ll have the pleasure to prep you for your first and last mission.”

 

————————————————————————————————————

 

Dreary gray and drab olive were the colors decorating the Alliance’s main training facility. Probably to be sure of squeezing whatever dregs of optimism their recruits might still feel about their condition in life. Jaime, who had been literally bred in the gold of the Lannisters without its taint ever managing to warp his mind, snorted to himself as he let the scanner read his handprint.

The doors hissed open and he was admitted into the Melee. True to its name, it was a huge continuous set of rooms, where Alliance operatives, active or aspiring, tended to congregate in confusing groups and hierarchies: some to train, some to fight and some to unwind and gossip.

He ignored those in the fighting pits and the ones pulling, pushing and sweating at machinery meant to grow their muscles in spite of their brains. He targeted the ones lounging on futons in the recreation area. Recreation area meant there were a couple of tall plants thrown in a corner of the room, their leaves yellowing at the edges from the cigarette smoke, and a psychedelic holo-wall, to stare at all the pretty swirls.

Active agents got to leave this place, like roaches to their own nooks in the wall, but trainees like Jaime, were stuck here, in the middling hell of the Alliance housing and training system. And yet, Alliance operatives didn’t lack in loyalty, strangely enough. Not for the first time, Jaime wondered at the glue holding them together in their little house of cards.

“Lannister.” A graying head bobbed in lazy greeting, then reburied itself behind an aggressively-decorated hardcover. Ah, no sniff at an audience today with the wise man of the bunch!

“Thoros,” he returned courteously enough.

Jaime would have to settle with the rabble. And speaking of…

“Red Ronnet, good man! I was always glad to see you made it out of Blackwater alive.” Now, there was a small miracle, he added uncivilly in his own head. 

“Yeah, no thanks to your freakish brother and his pyro hobby.” Connington looked especially crimson today, face matching the flaming belligerence atop his head. 

Jaime mentally berated Tyrion for not managing to rid the world of worthless scum like Red Ronnet, but keeping a sweet tongue in his mouth, courtesy of his sister’s teachings, he replied:

“Well, I guess, younger brothers tend to be more bloodthirsty than the rest of us. You should know, don’t you have one of those rummaging about here?” 

“Whatever, Lannister.” Red Ronnet moved to push past him, so Jaime stopped him with a quick arm around his shoulders. With a practiced hand, he slipped inside Connington’s jacket a pack of gold Dragons, then patted his breast pocket invitingly.

“Stop making cow eyes at me, Kingslayer, this ain’t Red Keep’s upper dungeon. What’s this in aid of?”

“I need some inside angle. You could be the man to deliver it, and these very expensive smolder-sticks would then just be the appetizer.” Having paused for effect like any worthy Lannister would for threats or bribes, Jaime then continued. “Dossier code name Sapphire.” 

He’d barely finished his very generous pitch, when Connington brushed him off and violently doubled over. 

Blindsided by this reaction, Jaime watched, a disbelieving witness, as a grown man tried his best to choke himself to death on laughter. Lured in by the promise of entertainment, operatives were moving closer to gawk at the comedy unfolding in the middle of their recreation area. Unsurprisingly, Thoros still had his nose firmly ensconced in his book.

Connington’s face alarmingly took the shade of incoming apoplexy, and Jaime felt compelled to turn questioningly to his brethren. As per usual, no answers were forthcoming for a Lannister.

When, after a long minute, Red Ronnet managed to finally gather his wits, he turned his damp-looking gaze towards Jaime. Barely stopping himself from just putting a fist through the weasel’s face, Jaime asked him in what he hoped was an airy tone:

“Something I said?”

“Code name Sapphire, you want to know about Sapphire. You’re saddled with the mission from hell.” Red Ronnet laughed again. “And you’re coming to me for help.”

Jaime simply stared at him, iron-faced.

“Even if I wanted to help you, which I don’t, there’s no solution to your problem. None of us managed to ever pass it. They,” here, Red Ronnet made a hand gesture in a vague direction, “use it as punishment. In more ways than one.” He laughed as to some private joke.

“You’ll have to seduce a woman, get her to leave "Sapphire", that’s the restaurant’s name by the way, with you. And you can’t take her away by force. That’s the whole mission. Big deal, you're dying to say, right? Sure, but nobody has actually managed to do it.” Murmurs were rising from the ranks of their audience.

“But you, Lannister, being such a ladies’ man you even got into your sister’s undies, maybe you can make it work.” Before the thought of moving even crossed Jaime’s mind, there was a steel-band arm bracing him back from launching himself at Connington. He looked at its possessor: Thoros of Myr had deigned to join the mortals. 

“Don’t give him what he wants. Remember, the feline has clever eyes and claws to match,” came the older man's whisper in his ear.

Emboldened by the rowdy shouts coming from the bystander agents, Red Ronnet Connington advanced on Jaime to further spit his venom. “You’ll fail and you’ll die at the Cat’s paws. This is what I call divine justice for your whoreson brother.”

The place erupted in jeers that seemed to swell and swell, as Jaime, breaking out of Thoros' hold, finally laid out the red-haired weasel with one punch, and continued to pummel his senseless body into the ground.


	2. In which Jaime and Catelyn talk it over and decide to remain enemies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We learn a little bit more about Dossier code name Sapphire. Jaime and Catelyn have an intense confrontation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ouf, sorry about the delay! I had intended for this to come out sooner, but life challenged me to a duel, and it was one of those non-negotiable types. Anyway, I do hope this chapter will be to your liking and worth the wait!

Sensory deprivation was not a tool particularly used by the Lannisters. Abject torture suited them better.

As such, Jaime had found himself very much in foreign waters in the undersized dark crypt they’d dragged him to as punishment. No, that wasn’t a word they’d use: moral correction was more the Starks’ style. 

When the door finally screeched open, after what had seemed an eternity spent in the warm damp, he was still daydreaming about how ice-cold showers might figure into the further rectification of his soul. Right then, he’d have embraced them with an open heart.

Two guards materialized in the fresh, dazzling light, like implacable higher spirits. As one, they hefted Jaime as easily as butcher brothers might have a lamb- and as impersonal, to lead him to the slaughter. Or rather they hauled him to a generic communal bathroom, then brushed wordlessly past him to go outside. 

Jaime was left behind, frowning up a storm. He’d been mentally running through fight schemes and tightening his muscles the whole way through, in anticipation for a roughing, at the very least. Then they went and spoiled his fun. Couple of closed-mouthed bastards too, unlike the Lannister underlings he’d had the misfortune of being acquainted with.

He burned through the entire length of the room in a matter of seconds, then walked it again, this time slower. 

It couldn’t be his age or a perceived lack of preparation, Jaime decided. Connington wasn’t particularly skilled, at, well, pretty much anything, but he remained a young active operative of the Alliance. Jaime’d put him to the ground in record time, and this without incurring any injuries. 

He flexed his right hand instinctively and then caught himself at it. He winced and rounded an even tighter fist. There, sane flesh above and blood pumping below, live and whole. The specter of the dirty curved blade of the hunting knife hovered over his right wrist then blew away as he huffed in frustration, mainly at himself. This wasn’t getting him anywhere he wanted to go.

His naked soles stuck unpleasantly to the matte green tiles. Door to front wall, his steps took him back and forth as his thoughts circled the clogged drain of his brain.

It couldn’t be the Lannister name keeping the guards at bay. For the Tullys’ and the Starks’ men, that would be like waving the red flag in front of an enraged bull. Pity, Jaime won’t take, greed he’d despise (then use, he was a Lannister after all’s been said and done), empathy, hah, he wouldn’t even see the back of it in this place.

No, this was something else. Thoros flashed unexpectedly in front of Jaime’s mind’s eye, a misplaced mystic in a wasps’ nest and his only chance at a neutral party in this war of attrition with Stark’s widow. Jaime should’ve heeded his counsel. 

Then he wouldn’t be here, being menaced by absolutely nothing, and going crazy trying to puzzle out what ignoring the traitorous Lannister might mean in the greater scheme of things. Jaime hated mind games with a passion, and as such, life had rewarded him fully by having him be surrounded with people who excelled at it: his father, his sister, his brother. Catelyn thrice-damned Tully Stark!

Oh! 

That made perfect sense. Stark personal guards, on Stark orders, given by Widow Stark herself. She’d meant to ambush him, defenseless, in the assumed intimacy of a private place. And Jaime hadn’t even stripped to hose himself down yet!

Well, it wouldn’t do to disappoint a woman in need.

Jaime sauntered to the the wall-long mirror above the row of sinks, and tested on its silvery reflection his wickedest grin. He grimaced; his confinement hadn’t left him in the best of shapes.

He passed his hands in front of a faucet sensor, cupped the tepid water in his palms and scrubbed his face with it plain. No soap, no frills. Not because he was a harder-than-nails man’s man, but rather because all the dispensers appeared to be empty. A Stark trick, but it could’ve belonged to a Lannister.

Jaime examined his mirror twin, willing himself to objectivity. His eyes looked more alert, if not back to their usual smolder; his face and lips had caught a bit of color due to vigorous manipulation. His hair was a lost cause: it hung limply, sweat and stray water muddying its color to an inoffensive mousey shade, blending at the sides with his grizzled beard. He allowed himself a small sigh.

Then he got going and, one by one, his clothes fell all over the bathroom floor as he went, tracing a path over to the bath stalls. He checked all of them over and unexpectedly struck treasure: dropped in probable haste, the very last one boasted a tiny bottle, a quarter full with what appeared to be some sort of cleanser. Ha, apparently decent help for nefarious purposes was getting harder to come by these days.

He went in, but not before dropping in front of the stall door the crowning detail, his boxers, which just happened to be a very satisfying shade of standard-red. To be waved in face of Widow Stark’s bullish nature, naturally.

The water reinvigorated his weary skin, cool as it flowed, over his shoulders and down his back and legs. The soapy liquid bubbled and foamed first between his palms, then underneath them as he washed from his body the evidence of his punishment. He’d be fresh as a fucking daisy and smelling like one for his cozy tête-à-tête with Catelyn Stark. And he’d deliver: whatever she was expecting, and more.

A loud bang resounded, like the echo of a gunshot ricochetting against the tiled walls. Jaime stepped outside the range of the water jet, letting its sound cascade unmuffled and warn his company he was on alert. And were the company Catelyn Stark, it’d be the only courtesy he’d pay her.

A cadence of steps followed, an easy, confident gait that stopped in front of his cubicle.

“Come out, Kingslayer.” The voice matched the walk in confidence. Ah, his much-awaited guest, here at last.

“I’d say come and get me, but that’s cheap and I am a Lannister.” Jaime moved forward, stopped behind the still-shut door to draw in a breath, then lifted the latch. “We always pay our debts,” he said, almost choking from the bitterness of those particular words on his tongue. He swung the door open.

A big dark towel hit his face from close range. It fell to the floor, slumping to cover the red of his boxers. In front of Jaime, one of the big guards from before - the bigger one, in Jaime’s honest opinion - gestured calmly with his hand.

“Pick it up.” That voice again. Now he could see it had come from farther away. Near the door, dressed in her perpetual black, Widow Stark stood sighting him like a hawk might a chick. 

“Or else? What will your watch-dog do?” Smirking, Jaime turned slightly so he’d be in her direct field of view. He pinned his eyes resolutely on her, ignoring the bulky third-wheel: he knew who the larger threat was in that room. “There’s nothing against operatives being nude in a publicly-shared bathroom in the rulebook. I should know, I’ve read it front-to-back.”

True to her proverbial nickname, Catelyn Stark walked towards them, silent and deadly dangerous. Jaime firmed his jaw, clenched his hands into fists, propped them on his hips. When she stopped, no more than three feet separated her from him. 

Jaime didn’t take the distance for granted; cats, after all, were prone to pounce when least expected. At some hidden signal on her part, the guard doubled over, snapping down to collect the towel and then up, like a spring in a broken clock. Wordless, he held it out.

“Well, if you insist.” With exaggerated delicacy, Jaime took it off his hands and secured it around his middle. Then he shrugged his shoulders, lifted an eyebrow, and swallowed down his reflex to say “Now what?” 

“Let them come to you,” had been one of his father’s favorite sayings, and thank the Gods for his father, right? Nah, fuck his father.

“Have you come to see for yourself if I’m properly chastened yet?” Stone-faced, Widow Stark offered no words. By her side, the watch-dog was mimicking his leash-holder so intently, that Jaime wondered idly if he dared even draw breath without his mistress’ say-so.

“Or did you have me brought here for your own little peep show? Must be excruciating being without a real man in your bed, if you’re that hard-up.” Jaime caught the flicker of aborted movement from the guard. Finally. He was satisfied to know he wasn’t boring his audience.

“That hard-up to covet you? It’s always a good day for a Lannister to recognize he’s lower than the dirt he walks on.” Catelyn’s smile was full of sharp teeth; it reminded him suddenly of Arya, though hers was comparatively more like a playful kitten’s. “Though, I doubt you’ll find any dirt dragging on the floors of my Keep.”

“You’d find a sufficiency of it back in my cell. Not that you’ve taken the time to visit me. Frankly, I feel a bit offended as I was hoping for a one-on-one with you starring as the hot interrogator and me tied up to a chair at your mercy.” Jaime batted his eyelashes and leered down at Widow Stark. “We can still have it out, you and I. As they say, better late than never. And now your dainty hands can even condescend to touch me: I smell as pretty as any flower.” He leaned forward, ignoring the guard as he moved, and made a show of baring his throat to the she-wolf.

The slap took him by surprise, and it shouldn’t have; he immediately felt annoyed with himself. It also had had the temerity to be as weak-powered as a declawed cat swiping at his face. It was more “Pay attention to me, junior,” than “You’re getting to me, you, you fiend.” That was an unsatisfactory state of affairs. 

Jaime caught her arm gently and dragged her a step closer to him. Immediately he felt the sharp kiss of a blade against his throat. He smiled, not like a Lannister might in his detached way, but as the man they’d dubbed the Kingslayer.

“No more games. Fine by me, lady Stark. Let’s put our cards on the table. I’ll start.” The knife didn’t withdraw from its perch on Jaime’s thyroid cartilage, though it easily rode the motion of his throat as he spoke. The guard was an expert. A steady-handed expert. If Jaime escaped with his life from today’s encounter, he’d definitely hit him up for war-story swapping.

“You want my life. That can easily be achieved. One frown from your noble brow and I’m sure your dog would happily oblige.” He took a breath, then forged on. “An unfortunate accident could occur. No, even better, a proscribed fight between agents gone wrong, and the Kingslayer could be found slain on a bathroom floor, with his unknown killer still at large, never to be captured and punished for his crime. It would make for a poetic end, don’t you think so?”

Catelyn Stark’s hair hadn’t one strand out of place; her eyes were as tender as the unyielding blade at Jaime’s throat. And yet, he could feel a softening in the arm he held, an unexpected giving in the flesh that had been up till then as hard as a statue’s.

“I am a Tully before I am a Stark. Family, duty, honor. Duty and honor I owe to my family. But do I owe duty and honor to anyone that crosses my path? To anyone that places himself in my care? You’ve placed yourself in my care.” She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know. Forced by circumstances beyond your control.” 

“Olenna Tyrell.” The answer rolled naturally off Jaime’s tongue.

“No, she’s the lie you tell yourself. You wanted out of House Lannister for your own reasons, Olenna was only the pretext. And on your way out, you dragged along my daughter, too.” 

“I saved your daughter.”

“You killed her father,” Catelyn Stark shouted and her accusation needled at the thorn Jaime’d successfully ignored till then. He clutched harder at her arm. The knife stung him as the serrated blade finally caught his skin, but it didn’t travel further.

“I didn’t kill her father, lady.” The words felt like gravel in his throat, but he got them out. He hadn’t done it.

“Fine, you stood by and allowed her father be killed. Is the truth less painful now? Say what you will about your own father, but he proudly admits he’s a Lannister who pays his debts. In blood, usually.” She pushed the index of her free hand into Jaime’s chest. “I haven’t forgotten about the Frey ambush. The only reason I haven’t yet burned his soulless husk off this earth is because there were no casualties.”

“There were casualties,” he whispered, confused by her accepting take on an ugly fuckup of a situation. Stark’s sworn allies had fallen next to their Frey betrayers.

“Not of import, not of my blood.” Something that almost looked like triumph shone out of her eyes. She continued on a quieter tone. “See? I can be as ruthless as any Lannister.”

Jaime felt as if he’d dropped into an alternate world and was now swimming alongside Antiquity’s monstrous fish, braving furious waves in untraveled waters. For the first time that evening, hope was slipping wisp-like through unseen gaps in his clenched fists. He rallied; he had to.

“Oh, you top us all, lady, except perhaps my father. Speaking of, you know nothing of him if you think he’d feel responsibility for any failure. Your husband’s death was a failure in his eyes,” Jaime said calmly, trying to inject some sense of measure into their derailing exchange.

Violently wrenching her arm from his hold, Catelyn Stark finally freed herself, but instead of retreating, she came right at him. Her puffs of breath warmed the metal of the reposing blade, as the unbroken skin above it tingled with awareness. Careful, Jaime reminded himself, careful.

“But it wasn’t a failure, you see. My husband died. Because of you, your sister, your father. Because of the diseased fruit of your loins. Because of all your blasted bloodline, going back to any ancestor that’d claim you. I don’t care whose was the hand that held the knife to my husband’s throat. You all did it.” 

She planted her palms firmly on his chest and pushed him back. Jaime let himself be thrust away, and in that instant he thought about forcing the knife away from the guard to even the fight. He could… He could lose the chance for the redemption he sought. What would he do if he got the knife? Cut down Arya’s mother? Sansa’s mother? Then he’d truly have those girls’ parents’ blood on his hands.

The blade came to rest once again on Jaime’s throat, the serrations carefully matching the bloody indents they’d left behind. He swallowed. “Then why not finish it here? One sharp thrust to my heart, and you’d forever be rid of me. It can’t be Old Olenna that stays your hand.”

Catelyn Stark laughed as if in disbelief at his lack of understanding. “Sansa believes you have some honor left. Not much, of course, but some. Enough to keep you here, put you to any use I might find fit.” 

She retreated a step, before looking down her nose at him, managing to do so despite the height disadvantage. “I don’t want to set a bad example for my children. I’d say you should be able to understand that, but then I know all about your children, especially Joffrey. His court was swarming of role models before he choked on poison.”

The word sped like a bullet through Jaime’s body, and he spit it out forcefully. “Don’t.” 

There was a warning hiss at his back. Even so, the blade loosened its demand on Jaime’s skin.

“Too much, too soon? I can’t imagine how that feels.” She spun around and started marching in front of Jaime. Left to right, then right to left, arms crossed behind her, she looked like a commander on the verge of delivering new orders to his troops.

“The Sapphire mission is perfect to take you off my hands permanently. And I get to keep them pristine at the same time,” she finished with a flourish.

“You’d ask for my death for one failed mission? One that no other agent has managed to get through? And yet they live.” It was his turn to bring out the disbelieving snort. “The Kobayashi Maru of missions? Even Sansa, puppy dog that she is, wouldn’t believe that.”

“Oh no, the Sapphire’s just the catalyst. If you can’t take field work, you’ll be reassigned outside of the main chain of command. After all, despite all the careful training bestowed on your unworthy shoulders, you’ve failed. You’ll need to clear your head, recalibrate your priorities. And, as you must know since you’ve read the rulebook, I’m the one who approves reassignment. You’ll end up a foot-soldier, holding position in our most advanced front-line.”

So that was Catelyn Stark’s game. She was right to think she could’ve easily been a Lannister. Goosebumps broke all over Jaime’s naked body.

“Why tell me all this?”

Stopping her pacing, she faced him once more. “What could you do with this worthless information? Everyone knows I’m out for your blood, I’ve never kept it a secret. The Sapphire Mission is a mission like any others. A hopeless mission, but still a test recognized by the Alliance, so I’m in my right to ask you to pass it. And I don’t think you’re that much of a coward to shed your tears on the pleats of my daughter’s skirts.”

Jaime was blocked in, true. He had no friends, no allies left. The family, he’d chucked it out himself for this final chance to build something honorable out of his life. He’d be damned, if he’d let a half-crazed she-wolf take it all away.

“Tell your dog to let go.” He placed his hand on the guard’s wrist and curled it, tight as a manacle. Her face stretched in an expression of mild surprise, Catelyn Stark waved a careless hand. The knife’s pressure vanished. Jaime pulled away from them, turning and moving toward the mirrored wall. He stopped in front of a sink fixture. He looked down at his right wrist for a long moment, then up to meet Widow Stark’s reflected gaze.

“What about the woman? Is she also one of your weapons,” he asked her, trying for a neutral tone.

“What woman?” Now, she overtly frowned, caught out and uncertain. It was a hollow victory.

“The one from the Sapphire Club?” Jaime started thumping the fingertips of one hand against the sink’s porcelain wide lip in what he hoped was an annoying rhythm. “Is she an agent tasked to resist any manner of persuasion? Is the mission void of any meaning, since you already hold all the cards?” 

Back on familiar turf, Widow Stark relaxed. Watching her let her guard down, Jaime itched to plaster the most obnoxious triumphant smile all over his face, but instead chomped on the flesh of his inside cheek. 

“You know about her, good. Then you know she’s an inflexible, unpassable obstacle. You’ll fail it like all the others before you, Kingslayer.”

“But is she yours?” He pressured her for an answer, before she could realize she needn’t give him one.

“Is her loyalty mine? She’s not from the Alliance. She’s passing the days minding her own business, in her small, quaint restaurant, wondering why all these men keep trying to buy her drinks.” 

Catelyn Stark smiled at that, a little smile, unlike the others that had come before, almost sad. Jaime wondered suddenly at the mystery behind the girl from the “Sapphire”, a curiosity that surpassed the reason of his interest in her. Despite Widow Stark’s affirmation, he felt sure she couldn’t just be a nobody.

“Then nothing impedes me from achieving my mission’s objective.” He faced them once more, mistress and guard-dog, not bothering to shield the hope in his eyes, in his tone.

“They say it’s good to have a positive outlook on life. You should go with that, it’ll make your complete fall from grace taste even sweeter.” That was the last rejoinder he received from Widow Stark before she glided majestically out of the room, her guard hounding her steps.

Jaime sighed and bent over painfully to pick up his dirty clothes from the floor. He was getting old, but…

All was not lost. While a chance survived, the odds could turn and favor him. The woman, his Sapphire mark, was the key.


	3. In which Jaime's quiet night in is ruined by meetings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime spends an eventful night, between meeting an ally and meeting a new threat (or is it?).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrestled more with this chapter than Jaime did literally in it. I hope you'll like it.

Thwap! Off went flying the aptly-colored blue dossier detailing the Alliance’s most challenging mission - its coup de grâce. The sound it made striking the front wall of Jaime’s room was unsatisfactorily dull for his mood. He longed to destroy bigger and better things.

Thwap! Up went flying Jaime’s arm to fend off Thoros’ open palm directed right at the crown of his head.

“Don’t try my patience, old man. I’ve eyes fucking mounted at the back of my head, ok?” Then Jaime sighed. “I know, I know. Precious official dossier that you borrowed for my sake and which must be returned safely to the Library, before the dear old lady over there cracks your knuckles across with her wooden ruler.” He went to retrieve the flimsy pair of covers that barely enclosed ten pages of content. He sat down on his bed and leafed through them again.

A couple of those pages looked to have been written by a harried intern with all the tricks of the trade: fat font type, jumbo-sized font, spaced spacing and a generous helping of words that were bolded for no clear reason. Those were worthless; instead of pictures or useable data on the target, the prose waxed lyrical about the venue. As for the larger part of the dossier, it was composed of complete menus for food, drinks and desserts being served at the “Sapphire”. Jaime’d never known there could be so many fishy dishes possible.

“They must be pulling my beard with this fucking dross.” Jaime thwapped the dossier vigorously, now against his own leg; it was so light it didn’t even sting. His mood darkened even more. This time, Thoros’s slap to the back of his head went unchecked.

“So we’re giving up, is that it? After all that song and dance you entertained the wildcat with, you’ll just lay down your weapons and mope around, feeling sorry for yourself?”

“There’s no we in this, old man.” Jaime stood up, turned and looked straight into Thoros’ eyes. “There’s the me who’ll soon end up dying in some unnamed, far-flung corner of the world, used as kindling in an already-lost war.” 

He broke his stare and pointed vaguely at Thoros. “And there’s the you who’ll be sitting some poor fool down on the sofa in the Melee, the day after tomorrow, to regale him with the story of the man with shit for honor who never did manage to gain any of it back.” 

Silence fell in the softly lit room, plunging like a heavy rock in a bottomless lake. It sat wrongly, stretched uncomfortably tight over skin and mouth, full of a kind of truth not meant to be shared between men like them. It led their eyes to wander in opposite directions.

Jaime stooped and pulled a black sweatshirt out of the standard dress closet, fit to house a medium-sized ant-hill and nothing more. Black sweatpants followed and he dropped the lot on the bed, temporarily erasing the blue folder from sight. Ignoring Thoros’ credible impression of a statue, he strode into the adjoining lavatory. 

Half an hour later, beard-free and minty-fresh, he returned to a handwritten note carefully laid on top of his set of clothes; underneath them, there lied only the bedding - the “Sapphire” dossier was missing. Undoubtedly, back it had gone into Thoros’ large pocket to be smuggled into the Library at a convenient time. The note wrote simply: _I might have something up my sleeve._ With how roomy the man’s trench coat seemed to be, Jaime wasn’t overly surprised at the declaration. He chortled at his own pun. Not that funny, but a condemned man was allowed, at the very least, a peculiar taste in jokes.

Having readied himself for the last of his carefree days, Jaime left his room. He’d first taken the trouble to douse the lights and secrete away all evidence of conspiracy, especially the white noise generator. They no longer tossed his living space on the regular these days in search of forbidden items, but caution was a faithful ally. Let the Widow Stark think he’d be going meekly to his death, docile as the proverbial lamb, and he’d show her, in the end, which feral cat was in possession of sharper claws.

In the dying dark of pre-dawn, the maze of corridors stretching towards the central part where the main offices congregated, appeared cavernous and bleak. The artificial lighting was set to low during nights, and would automatically kick in, sharp as an aching tooth, at 6 o’clock am, to throb at the day personnel’s slowly-rousing heads. Meanwhile, in the gloom, Jaime felt like a space visitor walking in a trance through a time-stilled hospital.

His destination was close to that central part, where a secondary training site could be found. Smaller than the Melee, and more private, it catered to the more solitarily-inclined agents. The oddballs, in common speak. At this moment in time, it had the undeniable advantage of being almost certainly lacking in human companionship.

As Jaime neared a convergence of pathways, there was a sudden cadence of steps resonating drily on the stone-covered floor, coming from his right and closing in fast. Later on, he would congratulate himself on the quickness of his trained spy reactions, but for now, compelled by some undefinable thing lurking underneath his skin, he flattened himself to the wall and waited in the shadows, barely drawing breath. 

A moderate swarm of non-Alliance agents moved past him and onto the larger path, clad in unremarkable dark-blue from head-to-toe, no identifying house markings in sight. The face-masks they wore were extensive, leaving only an upper band-like aperture for visibility. Though, they weren’t the ones making all the noises a small herd of elephants passing through might. Those came from the three civilians, at the heart of the large human shield, that Jaime could only spot intermittently by way of their colorful garments.

As the group grew smaller with the distance, Jaime found himself with a tough decision on his hands. Follow the foreign agents to try to sniff out any potential weakness Widow Stark might be concealing, or go ahead with his plan of beating the stuffing out of most of those sweetly-expectant boxing bags.

Mind won over heart, and he hurried along, treading with care on the thrice-damned stone pavement. As all roads eventually lead to Westeros, he didn’t bother taking the same route as the visiting group; he knew where they would wind up. He was proven right, as the players gathered silently in the Main Hall. Widow Stark was there in formal attire, with the older Stark pup and a handful of trusted senior operatives Jaime had no trouble recognizing. 

The human shield parted and in the shuffling of steps, Jaime’s sharp inhale went happily unnoticed. The figures were familiar to him, even from the distant nook he’d chosen as his blending-in space. Olenna Tyrell, Margery Tyrell and the walking ghost of Renly Baratheon! The latter looked remarkably well preserved, considering his two-year death anniversary must’ve just been fêted by Gray Stannis back at Storm’s End. 

The greetings went fast, and soon the two groups retired deeper within the innards of the Alliance, where every courtesy of hospitality would be extended to the guests from Highgarden. Jaime had missed most of the words exchanged, and those heard shed no particular light on the situation. 

But naughty, naughty Margery! No wonder she’d not insisted on her rights as Joffrey’s grieving fiancée, when her deceased husband appeared to be very much alive. Jaime’s low chuckle sounded disbelieving even to his own ears. There was an advantage to be pressed there. Old Olenna still owed him one, and maybe this time, he’d actually say yes to her proposition.

Again those special agent’s instincts stirred restlessly within Jaime, and he raised his head only to find one of the Highgarden operatives advancing decidedly towards his shaded hiding spot. 

Jaime’s hands were tied. If he engaged in fisticuffs and through that, managed to endanger whatever plans were being cooked up, he’d not even get to fail the “Sapphire” mission. Widow Stark would have his head for breakfast this very morning. He needed to charm his way out of this.

The newcomer wasn’t quite as tall as the Mountain, but he had the advantage of height on Jaime nonetheless. His body was built in the tradition of a heavy-weight fighter, and his somber attire succeeded into making his bulky figure appear even more ominous in the twilight. He stopped at a wary distance from Jaime and held out a hand to motion him out of his shadowy alcove.

Jaime obliged him, stepping forward and allowing the miserly light to shine weakly on his features. He was instantly aware of a current of energy sweeping over his opponent, even though his stance remained unchanged under Jaime’s watchful eyes. The behemoth from Highgarden knew a Lannister mug. But would he try to bash it in?

Jaime raised his hands in surrendering fashion and launched into his spiel. “Listen, friend, I’d say this isn’t what it looks like, but I can’t lie to such an amiable-faced fellow like yourself.” He continued to move closer to the masked man, step by baby step. “It’s what it is, but I meant no harm to you and your mistress. It’s nothing more sinister than simple curiosity as to who might be traipsing about in the hours before first light.”

There was no audible reply, but the same gloved hand used to signal him before turned and opened, palm facing towards him. Compliant, Jaime stopped his forward movement but kept his mouth running. “I mean, you can understand that, right? You were pretty curious yourself about who might be hiding in the shadows when you came to root me out.” No answer was forthcoming, verbal or otherwise. 

“I don’t want to fight you for such a piss-poor thing.” Jaime huffed a shivery breath and let his voice wobble in his throat. “Look, man, I’ve been having a hard night, a miserable week, and a rotten year to round it all up, you might’ve seen it in the gossip rags. Cut a guy some slack, why don’t you, and let him get back to pummeling innocent boxing bags in peace?” 

Seconds crawled like ants over Jaime’s spine as he waited for the giant to slowly crank up to a decision.

Finally, something sparked to life. The behemoth from Highgarden stepped to the side and simply stared from under his heavy brow at Jaime, who hurriedly grabbed the extended invitation and strolled past him in an orderly fashion. He resisted looking at his giant from too close-up and made sure to keep a straight and narrow line in case of an unwanted tail. 

Mercifully, the training room was devoid of all human trace when he finally arrived there, and Jaime didn’t have to spare one second before starting on what he’d said he’d do. 

On and on, powerful hits rained on his unyielding adversary, burning through the suppurating rage he felt shifting like magma beneath the weary pathways of his brain. He stuck to the lazily swaying boxing bag, punched it with both hands and feet, again and again. He turned his whole body into a massive fist, a battering ram against its heavy weight. 

His blood pumped ferociously, forcing his lungs to work faster, his heart to beat harder, his muscles to contract with purpose. The sweet exertion fed something close to absolution to his feverish mind. 

As his blows petered out and came to a slow end, he wound up smiling, hugging the bag like he might’ve Cersei in their early days. 

Then, the door clicked shut, and the silence that followed was marred only by the harshness of Jaime’s breathing. He was struck by a feeling of déjà-vu.

He turned his head, and true enough, standing silent and enigmatic in front of the room’s single way out was the Highgarden giant. If it feels like a trap, then it must be one, was Jaime’s first thought. Dull to anything but the roar of blood in his ears, he scrambled to regain ground against the wild desire to just go for the threat’s throat and worry about the consequences later. The giant waited him out.

“I was so good you came back for seconds, huh?” No answer, no movement. Jaime let go of the bag; it twisted and turned on its rope, a fish hooked on a tight line. 

“ A guy could get the wrong impression is what I’m saying. After all, you do work for a sword swallower like the younger Baratheon.” Now that started the giant, as he trembled finely like a skittish horse first under the bridle. Ah, ah, ah, I’ve got him, Jaime told himself, now to see what to do with him. 

He bought himself some time to think by coming closer until he was practically nose to chin with the still-silent man. There was something in him that gave Jaime pause. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was that troubled him, but there was a familiarity to this man’s figure he couldn’t explain - it made his hair want to stand up on its ends.

They stared at each other, an overlong gaze that should’ve felt menacing but didn’t. Then, the not-quite-a-giant passed Jaime wordlessly, went to one corner of the room and started divesting himself. 

“That’s quite the show,” Jaime’s mouth didn’t know how to quit, and thank the Seven for that, “but, I’m afraid you’re looking at a destitute Lannister, not a Baratheon princeling,” because frankly, he was feeling thrown out of the game completely.

Every item of clothing was folded as soon as it was taken off, and placed carefully on the floor, with the heavy-looking robe the base of this strange pyramid. When the man straightened, he was sporting just a black singlet and close-fitted short pants. They put into evidence his powerful build and the corded strength of his muscled arms and legs, over which skin as white as unmelted snow faintly shimmered as he started to move. He climbed into the boxing ring, and walked to one of the corners at a sedate pace. In Jaime’s brain, a light fluttered alive as he witnessed the other man’s quick job of wrapping his hands and wrists. 

He could leave right now, nothing was standing between him and the door. He could deny himself a fight he hadn’t sought, and not call himself a coward. It would be a sterile fight, besides, for there was no boiling of his blood when he thought of the Highgarden operative. Everything felt aimless, there was something Jaime was missing - why the trouble of staging a boxing match when they could’ve really gone for it since the beginning? 

The palm slapping the top rope drew his eyes away from the closed door and back to his … adversary, as he gestured for Jaime to get in the ring. 

“Not after the first date, I’m afraid, sweetheart,” Jaime said and moved resolutely towards the door, preparing for an attack from behind. It failed to materialize, and when he pulled the door open, he realized why. Two masked Highgarden agents, not as big as their comrade, but definitely as mean-looking, were standing guard outside. Before he could react, the door shut itself in his face.

His new friend certainly knew how to set a trap. Jaime turned back to look at him. He hadn’t got rid of the mask, and the body, in which Jaime’d read his tells earlier, was motionless and silent. 

Jaime started removing his clothes, letting them drop on the floor where he stood, and that too felt like déjà-vu. “At least you’re quiet, unlike the lovely Widow Stark,” he mused, when he was left standing only in his boxers. 

“Are all of you like that? Do the Tyrells cut out your tongues at birth?” Soon he was bending down to get under the ropes and climb into the ring. The wrapping of his hands was quickly done and dirty, but it’d hold, he could feel it tighten around his joints as he made a fist. He pulled on the boxing gloves.

“How did you wanna do this? Till spilled blood? Me in the infirmary? You in the infirmary with a brain bleed?” His opponent didn’t bother answering that line of questions either and showed him his gloved fists as he moved to meet Jaime in the centre of the ring.

They started loosely enough, more like a getting-to-know-you dance than my fist-is-jammed-up-your-nostrils scuffle. The man wasn’t a giant after all, thought Jaime, a bare couple of inches separated them. He was clearly built, but not pathetically so, more like a harmonious distribution of well-defined muscles. And his glowing skin seemed to be owing to scented oil, Jaime discovered when they came into a clinch for the first time. Not a bad smell, either. Dizzying.

His opponent pushed him into the ropes, near his corner, and Jaime let him do it. He was protecting his body and face while he let the other man pummel uselessly at his shoulders and arms. Even relentless strength could be drained, the trick was how to do it faster. His mouth could serve him well there, and he probed the mouthguard with his tongue, trying to lodge it upwards.

“I don’t get why we’re doing this, you’re not even angry. Does screwing the younger Baratheon matter so much to a Tyrell foot soldier?” He got in a solid one-two combo with his opponent still mired in bewilderment. He tried to press his advantage, sending a flurry of punches towards the other man’s torso while his guard was down. He was successful in drawing out a single pained groan, but most hits connected quite well and he felt satisfied with his plan of action.

Until his adversary struck down Jaime’s fists held in protective stance in front of his face, and followed it with a heavy cross that resonated through his jaw. Jaime gathered all his strength and shoved him away. Then he spit out blood and felt thankful no tooth followed. “So you love him. It does you no honor.”

They came at each other once more, this time with something akin to fury singing in both their bloodstreams. Jaime had the upper hand and then his opponent wrestled it from him and Jaime regained it and then he lost it. Again and again they rounded the ring, neither landing a decisive blow, but adding hundreds of yards to their footwork and purple blooms to their skin.

In a spare moment when, exhausted, they separated and went to their respective corners to lick their wounds, in tacitly-agreed respite, Jaime couldn’t stop himself from adding, wanting to sting without fully understanding why: “You’re in love with a man that can’t be worthy of you. I’ve met him, he’s nothing but a pup teething at his mom’s teats.” 

The grunt he got in return was the equal of a blood-curdling scream from any other person, and Jaime barely got the time to draw breath before he was being barreled down. The other man was nearly inhuman in his rage, as he pelted him with quick fists like stout hailstones. Jaime kept up for longer than he had any right to, considering how he’d stirred that glorious hornets’ nest hiding in his opponent’s chest.

He finally went down, his gloved fists tight against his face, his body left open to aggression and he smiled through the pain. “My face’s all the fortune I have left, sweetheart, so don’t go and ruin it. I have to see a dame two days from now about a Sapphire.” He chuckled softly and waited for the next blow to fall. And went on waiting. He opened his eyes.

The Highgarden man, Baratheon’s lover, was crouched over him, his masked face betraying nothing. His body was a different story, one that Jaime could read easily; regret featured heavily. He bit into the fastener of one glove and freed his right hand. Unchallenged, he ran a finger just under the shape of an uncovered eye and it returned wet. He sucked it into his mouth. It was salty: with tears or sweat, Jaime wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The not-quite-a-giant grabbed his right wrist, but didn’t pull or crush. His touch was gentle as if he were handling a wounded bird. Jaime felt panic and excitement racing each other along his nerve endings. He’d seen this before, he’d felt this before!

In a cell, under the thin light of candles, where he’d stared death in its eyes while it prepared to maim him. Then, a cowled, faceless man, rising from the ranks of kneeling followers, had stopped the dirty knife before its descent could take everything from Jaime. He’d held his wrist briefly before passing him a weapon, and they’d fought their way out of there. He’d lost track of his savior, who seemed to evaporate in the light of day, in face of all the Lannister-contracted soldiers rushing to a late rescue.

Against all reason, Jaime was now certain this was the same man. “Is it you?” he asked, trying for a normal voice and failing. He didn’t care. “Who are you?” He grabbed onto the man’s arm and pulled him violently towards himself, closing the distance to near nothingness. He got a quick impression of enormous blue eyes staring guilelessly down at him, before his arm was wrenched back and the other man vanished from his sight.

Jaime cursed and tried to follow, but not too long after, the door clicked closed again. He was alone before he even managed to get himself to a sitting position. His enraged shout fell only on his own ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't that Jaime oblivious?


	4. In which Jaime, willingly, makes a new friend and, unwillingly, two more

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter felt less like a struggle and more like getting pleasantly lost in a Botanical Garden. Jaime, regardless of what he might say, enjoyed meeting all his new friends.

The code was a child’s play to solve. Literally. 

It had been conceived during a long-drawn summer at Casterly Rock, when days of endless sun were spent halved between brother and sister, with Jaime thrust in the middle as a toy they could argue over. Nights had belonged, unquestioningly, to Cersei, but she’d come to him in the day also: to steal a kiss, to cop a feel, to fuck against the wall of the stone pavilion. They’d been allies in a lie against Tyrion who’d felt it and clung even fiercer to Jaime’s shadow. There had been no such devotion spent on his older sister - proof that Tyrion, even at a tender age, was an excellent judge of character.

Jaime’d started it by doodling funny shapes on a paper napkin one day at breakfast table, as uncle Kevan had droned on about something or the other, then passing it to Tyrion in a bid to make him laugh. It’d been a roaring success. By that night his baby brother’d had half of an alphabet down and they’d settled on the other half at dinnertime, while uncle Kevan’d read them passages from their father’s five-page weekly letter. Afterwards, Cersei’d been ravishing with the rage of the ignored; Jaime still had a tiny half-moon scar on his left biceps, left-over from a sharp tooth.

Their whimsical lingo had endured through the years, scribbled on notes changing hands first at Casterly Rock, and then Red Keep. 

Jaime’d searched for it on any scrap of paper coming his way the first months he’d spent in the Alliance. For the proof of life from the brother he’d set free before fleeing in the night with Old Olenna and Sansa Stark. After his king’s, his son’s, murder. Tyrion was resourceful enough to make it happen, even in the Starks’ stronghold.

Now, it unfolded carelessly on the back of a prescription. The note’d been hidden between bandages and painkillers in a bundle of stuff he’d received that very morning from the Infirmary, to treat scrapes and bruises resulting from his claimed tumble off the stairs in the night.

The code was easy to crack; the message was harder to swallow. It sat unwelcome at the back of Jaime’s throat. His already wearing-thin patience started to fray.

He burned the paper methodically; its ashes were washed down the drain and still he felt uneasy. There was a double-faced spy inside the Alliance, Tyrion’s hound, and he’d been set on Jaime. It was time to do some digging.

His uncle Kevan had taught him once that one should confirm an enemy thoroughly before going for his blood. In view of that non-Lannister lesson, Jaime divided accordingly his morning between watching surveillance videos of intake and outtake medical flow, browsing the database of known Infirmary personnel and chasing around pretty nurses to chat with. He had a name by midday.

He cornered Podrick Payne as he was leaving Mess Hall and dragged him to a close-by utility room. The cameras were not rolling. Jaime’d made sure of it. 

He strapped Payne’s wrists together by way of a cable tie, and pushed the young medical assistant face-first against the only naked wall. He affixed the mike jammer just above the boy’s head. “Start talking.”

Payne, who’d discretely fought his hold the whole way, was now doing an impression of a wriggling earthworm trying to burrow himself away from Jaime’s weight against his back. “No can do, kiddo,” said Jaime mildly, hauling him away from the wall only to then grind him into it even harder. “There’s no escape from this.”

“I don’t know what… Look, you got the wrong guy, Mister, I mean, Agent Lannister,” Payne started babbling, sounding on the precipice of weeping. Unluckily for him, Jaime only heard Cersei in his pleading, fake Cersei shedding her crocodile tears, trying to fool him again. 

He flipped the boy around, secured his shoulders with a bended arm and used the other one to press gently on his throat.

“Listen, I’m not gonna choke you, kid,” Jaime said, watching him carefully. “I want a talk, a true talk, as real as can be. Starting with my brother and your history with him and ending with what you know about his plans concerning my person. Don’t spare details. Go.” He took away his hold on Payne’s neck.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know your brother. I mean I’ve seen him in papers and the like, but I haven’t met him. I’m not the guy you’re looking for.” Payne’s face looked genuinely pained, tears trembling at the corners of his eyes. But Jaime knew how to read a man’s strength and where to seek his hidden feelings: the boy’s jaw was tight, his teeth clenched hard. He was lying through his pearly whites. 

“Now, can I go, please?” There it was, the hint of open defiance in Payne’s voice. The boy thought he’d won. Jaime smiled ruefully and slashed though the binding with a quick blade. He stood back and watched Payne as he rubbed his wrists slowly, not skittering away all-a-flutter like the little ingénue act he’d been trying to sell. 

“You know, my brother used to surround himself with better liars.” Jaime’s smile widened and he raised his eyebrows engagingly. “I remember you. From Red Keep. You were one of the little helpers holding Tyrion’s train while he tramped about.” 

Payne stilled, his chest unmoving, only the barest quiver of his nostrils visible, as if he’d caught the scent of something rotten. Jaime spoke again, his heart warming his insides with victory so close at hand:

“One word trickled up into the she-wolf’s ear like sweet poison, and you’d hang for treason.”

“You’d go down too,” the boy’s answer shot out, overlapping the end of Jaime’s sentence.

“For what? I’d turn everything in, if need be. The note with your paw prints all over, the precise video string of you handing me the medical stuff containing said note, a very charming nurse’s recollection of how you’d asked her to switch patients when you saw me come in this morning. Everything.” Jaime drew out the last word, relishing its power on his tongue. 

He held out a hand in front of the paling boy.

“I wouldn’t have to lift my little finger against you, for you to end up dead and cut up in many tiny pieces scattered on the wind.”

“Then, why fucking go through all this cheap drama with zip ties and knives and threats of violence?” 

Ah, the pup’d finally shed his milk teeth. Jaime’s mouth stretched into what he had an inkling was quite the unhinged smile.

“I have to get my kicks somehow. This place is starchier than a septa’s,” Jaime huffed a laugh, “wimple.” 

“This was fun for you? This?” Payne’s indignation brought him closer. “You’re madder than they say, Kingslayer.” 

He drew in a shaky breath and squeezing his eyes like he’d bit into a lemon, he finally gave Jaime the truth.

“So you see,” the boy concluded his story, “your brother only wants what’s best for you. That’s why he sent you the coded message. Once you’re out of this place, he has friends that can grab you right from under the Alliance’s noses and keep you safe until you reach him.” Payne sighed and rubbed the tip of his nose thoughtfully, while peering at Jaime from under his eyelashes. “That’s the whole honest truth. I swear it.”

“You’d be wrong to swear it. Now then,” Jaime gestured for the boy to keep quiet, “don’t flap about. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m sure you think my brother’s words come straight from the mouths of the Seven themselves.” 

The stopwatch in Jaime’s head keeping count of the hours left from the state of his disputable freedom started skipping seconds, in view of this undesired surprise.

“No,” he continued, low-voiced, “my brother’s help is anything but.” He could feel Payne’s eyes fixated on him, trying to carve beneath the myth of the Kingslayer.

“Do you know, I helped steal a woman from him a long time ago? He repaid me by trying to steal our father’s life from him, but he must know I don’t give a rat’s ass about the old man. So you see, we have here a lack of balance. I gave Tyrion his life, but we’re not square, we can’t be. Not until I lose a woman, a woman I care about, to him.” Jaime slowly moved towards the door, reached Payne and was barred by him from advancing any further.

“You lost Cersei.”

“I gave Cersei up. It doesn’t count.” Jaime gently cuffed the boy’s head. “You shouldn’t lend your ears to idle gossip, neither.” He removed the boy’s hand from his arm.

“But, it’s true, right? That you fathered all your sister’s children like Stannis Baratheon says. That the king is not the rightful king.” 

“The king is the king. And the king he will be until he’s dead in the ground.” 

Jaime opened the door and the heavy light from outside stung his eyes, grown accustomed to the semi-dark of the utility room. He paused on the threshold. He turned back at Payne’s half-hissed call of his name.

“Your brother wants to save you from Catelyn Stark. You need to heed his words and run while you still can.” Podrick Payne’s face was open with the vivid embodiment of his young age: he’d gone from being scared-stiff by Jaime to having compassion for a broken man in a space of an hour. Ah, the optimism of youth.

“I’m through with running away. I live and die by my honor these days, kid.” He motioned towards the mike disruptor still attached to the wall. “You can have that for your budding career as a double spy.”

Thoros hadn’t mentioned a meeting hour on his note the previous night, but Jaime was running out of time - only half a day to go until the very last one. Then Sapphire awaited, where he’d prove true to his boastful words or sign and initial his death warrant.

He went to the Melee in search for his old companion-in-arms. While he didn’t find Thoros within, there was a chance he wouldn’t leave empty-handed. Widow Stark’s hound with a knife was there, near the recreation area, in the Games’ section. He wasn’t alone.

Jaime, who’d mentally promised him a quick word after the previous day, made a beeline for his corner, unheeding of the crowd milling about. At his approach, a wave of murmurs swept over the group. The young guard, close-mouthed, contented himself to be part of the audience. 

Jaime stopped directly in front of him, and, having a clear death wish, pushed a finger right into his chest.

“You and I have a talk pending, friend.” The whispering grew discordantly close to breaking the bar of intelligibility around him. Jaime paid it no mind. 

The Starks’ guard kept silent. Jaime took the time to look him over. He had pleasant features, unsuited for a bruiser. His green eyes pored over Jaime’s face, searching diligently for something. Jaime wasn’t too sure what that was about, but he’d had quite enough of wordless giants to last him a lifetime.He poked his finger at his chest again. 

This time, the guard moved, dislodging Jaime’s tenuous touch. Angry movement among the onlookers was shaping up on the outskirts of Jaime’s field of view. He drew a deep breath, readying himself for what was to follow. 

A sudden clapping noise came from the young guard’s hands and a whistling sound issued from his lips. The Starks did run a tight ship with their own protection detail, as evidenced by the still-grumbling group scattering like pins bowled over by a ball at their leader’s command.

The guard then led Jaime towards the dartboards setting. They weren’t followed.

They played, taking their turns in the silence, only colored by the background din and the dry, choked sound their darts made when hitting the sisal. After the first couple of legs, Jaime discovered that a grin had been lurking, unnoticed, at the corners of his mouth. His opponent seemed to be having the same problem. They exchanged a conspiratorial look and even patted each other on the back during a break between sets.

Jaime’s attempts at engaging the other man in a conversation, though, were continuous failures, and he admitted to himself that was probably due more to physical inability than any willfulness on the guard’s part. He relaxed in the game and enjoyed the easy companionship for what it was.

The guard’d been unsticking the darts from the board, wordlessly laughing at Jaime’s latest attempt that’d culminated in a bucket of nails, when his face smoothed suddenly and his eyes turned grave. Jaime turned away from the oche and forgot to exhale. 

In front of him, standing just a few inches taller, face and body hidden beneath the dark-blue of his uniform, was a Highgarden agent. There was no doubt in Jaime on which one of them he was. He’d recognized the other man instinctively, appearing like he’d been sprung from the tight confines of Jaime’s memory to land at his feet. Anticipation filled sweetly the inside of Jaime’s mouth.

“You led me a merry-chase this morning, friend. I searched everywhere for you,” he said, taking a step forward, closing the space between them to near-inconsequential. “I know it’s you,” he continued in an even tone, steadying his words before setting them free, “I also know that it was you in the Goat’s caves. You saved me.” 

Jaime’s right hand left his side and offered itself, open and bare, to the man who had wrenched him from the path of destruction. Hours seemed to pass by before his gesture was paid in kind, and a gloved palm met his own. He curved his fingers around his prize, enjoying the inflexible strength and warmth of it. He couldn’t yet seem to meet the depth of the other man’s gaze, to see the blue glitter he’d glimpsed before.

“I want you to tell me your name. I want to see your face.” The hand Jaime held tried to pull away but he tightened his grip briefly, “I’m not a threat to you. Or Baratheon,” before releasing it. Neither of them moved away.

Unobserved, Widow Stark’s guard had come to stand at Jaime’s shoulder. His hands launched in a quick and elaborate set of motions that were complemented by his shoulders, his torso and his face. It was a variant of sign language that Jaime didn’t recognize, but that seemed to capture all of the Highgarden agent’s attention. The latter’s contributions to the soundless exchange were limited to gestures that came few and far between - even now a man of spare words.

Jaime looked between them, fascinated. He’d caught the meaning of a couple isolated signs because of their familiarity to the standard sign language: a hand moving forward, twisting at the wrist stood for fish; index fingers stretched forward and snapping upwards twice for leader; a dominant index, reversed, launched forward from the jaw for tomorrow. He had a feeling something important was happening right in front of him, but the ultimate meaning escaped him.

When their hands fell quiet, they both turned as one to look at him. “I don’t have anything to contribute, guys. You could always pass me a written minute of your conversation and we’ll go from there,” Jaime said and the Starks’ guard smirked at him. His savior’s mask didn’t even twitch.

“B!” A frantic shout had the Highgarden agent pivoting, instantly alert. He spared them one backward glance and moved to join its owner, who was one of his own colleagues. Jaime strode after him, caught him by the arm. “I’m glad you came to find me,” he whispered and gently squeezed the curved muscle, before letting him leave. 

Going back to his erstwhile darts opponent, Jaime surprised a strange, impotent look on his face, a mingling of irritation and sadness. When the young man grew aware of his stare, he shrugged his massive shoulders and signed something even Jaime found easy to recognize: fingers of both hands, stretched and wide-spaced, growing from the sides of his head. Antlers. Renly Baratheon. 

That name left Jaime sour with startling frequency these days. He forced his body to unclench, his face lagging in the ask, if he were to judge by the kind look his new friend was throwing his way.

He didn’t understand why he suddenly cared so much. For a stranger, even - his father would quake in his sensible shoes if he saw Jaime now. 

In the greater scheme of things, what could it count that a sworn foot soldier of the Roses would jump to serve under a Baratheon weakling? Even if the man in question appeared to be otherwise worthy and gifted with a considerate heart. Even if he’d saved Jaime’s life without demanding or expecting anything in return. Even if …

“Do you want to know something funny, friend?” He didn’t wait for the young guard to acquiesce before carrying on.

“That man, the one he left, he saved my life two years ago, and, in the process, made me long for change. Afterwards, I vowed to become a better person, to grow beyond what I had been, to rescue my honor from the mud it’d been wallowing in. That’s how I’ve ended up here, under Stark colors. And that’s why I’ll probably die when I fail the Sapphire mission tomorrow.” 

His companion shook his head frantically and mouthed a vehement “no”. Jaime smiled a little and went on.

“But you know what? The path he put me on was the true one, the one I should’ve followed my whole life. And, if I’ve reached the end of it, than so be it, and through no fault of his.” 

The large hand on his shoulder was unexpectedly light. The guard mouthed “sorry” and pointed at the thin dressing over the marks left behind by his knife on Jaime’s throat.

“Yeah, I know,” Jaime replied. “How about another set of those darts?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick explanation for the darts terms used:
> 
> Sisal is a material that can be used in the making of a dartboard.
> 
> A bucket of nails means landing all three darts one has per turn in the 1 value.
> 
> An oche is the line from behind which one throws his darts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading it. I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
